Author
Topic: What are your likes in Video Game and Anime Music?

I burn through Video Game Soundtracks whenever I get my hands on one, hoping to find something that would peek my interest or amaze me. It's a hit or miss, but there are times when I get a good amount of tracks that I can indulge myself in that are wonderful to my ears. Usually the tracks I end up loving have at least one of these traits:

One characteristic that encapsulates me in complete bliss is the build up to a climatic end (Or middle) that explodes. A good composer to listen to that has music of this nature is Debussy. His "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Girl With the Flaxen Hair" are examples of buildup, one explosive while the latter a beautiful release. What's amazing about these pieces is there ability to build up to that climax, it's literally orgasmic in a vulgar way to describe it. BUT WAIT, VIDEO GAME.

A composer that totally captures my ears and check-boxes most of those characteristic above is Noriyuki Iwadare, Specifically talking about his Grandia I Soundtrack.

In regards to the buildup, his "Ghost Ship" is a constant push and pull to a finale. It's funny now that I think about it, because when I first played this game and heard this track, I hated it. It sounded uninteresting to me, granted I was probably 14 or 15 when I first played the game. 7-8 years later I hear it again, and it ended up being my favorite track from Iwadare's repertoire. His composing and orchestration was just on point in this track, I even love his devil's laugh insert [0:38] on the violin during the beginning of this track. This piece kind of bears a resemblance to a symphonic poem...

Ooo those were great! I forgot about Shadow of the Colossus...amazing music that reminds me of Gundam Wing (;)). I started this topic really late at night and didn't put down other things I like, which crosses into anime music as well... which is when Composers take a bow to the masters of music of old in their compositions-arrangements. Below is a list of this: (There's a GREAT deal of them, but these are what popped into my head first)

I like sweeping orchestral music accompanied with a chorus, or even just a great singer. Stuff that makes me go "WOW".How about something from Tommy Tallarico? Skeleton Warriors OST was great. skip ahead to 6:10 for the choral stuff:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55IV2CB_DDg

I'm liking exotic arrangements that mix styles. I also love a track that has an immense build or dynamic structure and takes unexpected turns. Individual melodies matter less to me than what's done with them.

So, one of the defining chord progressions for the entire FFVIII soundtrack is most prominently showcased in the song you cited. And you're on the nose regarding geographical/ethnic root to the progression's popularity.

In music theory detail it's a four measure pattern that looks like this:

measure 1: a minor chord. For this example, let's use A minor itself (I think the piano collection arrangement is in this key). So that's A, C, and E.

measure 2: take the 5th of that minor chord, raise it a half-step to F. Now you have A C F, which is an F major chord, inverted. So far, this is extremely common chord progression. It's not Am's relative major, but it fits the key signature (Am / C), so we went vi to IV in terms of the Roman Numeral system.

measure 3: take that same note we raised, and raise it ANOTHER halfstep. THIS is what makes it unique and brings out that Spanish flavor. Your chord is now A C F#. Fill in the Eb and you can clearly see a full diminished chord.

measure 4: descend back to the F inverted chord from measure two.

This pattern is awesome. It's entrancing. It's much of what makes me adore the FFVIII soundtrack. In terms of scales, adding the F# takes you from Aeolian mode (that is, a natural minor scale) to Dorian mode (minor scale with raised 6). If you also include the Eb for the fully diminished chord (and the main melody hits that Eb!) you're making some sort of crazy modal scale that is best described as Spanish/Moorish. Modern music, esp. jazz, owes its roots to "experimental" ideas like these. After all, the diminished 5th / augmented 4th (A to Eb, to fit this illustration) is "the devil's harmony" and wasn't allowed in many Christian sanctuaries for centuries.

You can see this "hold the bass/foundation note, raise the other notes to create new chords" concept also in Blue Fields, Find Your Way, and other great pieces from the soundtrack.

So, one of the defining chord progressions for the entire FFVIII soundtrack is most prominently showcased in the song you cited. And you're on the nose regarding geographical/ethnic root to the progression's popularity.

In music theory detail it's a four measure pattern that looks like this:

measure 1: a minor chord. For this example, let's use A minor itself (I think the piano collection arrangement is in this key). So that's A, C, and E.

measure 2: take the 5th of that minor chord, raise it a half-step to F. Now you have A C F, which is an F major chord, inverted. So far, this is extremely common chord progression. It's not Am's relative major, but it fits the key signature (Am / C), so we went vi to IV in terms of the Roman Numeral system.

measure 3: take that same note we raised, and raise it ANOTHER halfstep. THIS is what makes it unique and brings out that Spanish flavor. Your chord is now A C F#. Fill in the Eb and you can clearly see a full diminished chord.

measure 4: descend back to the F inverted chord from measure two.

This pattern is awesome. It's entrancing. It's much of what makes me adore the FFVIII soundtrack. In terms of scales, adding the F# takes you from Aeolian mode (that is, a natural minor scale) to Dorian mode (minor scale with raised 6). If you also include the Eb for the fully diminished chord (and the main melody hits that Eb!) you're making some sort of crazy modal scale that is best described as Spanish/Moorish. Modern music, esp. jazz, owes its roots to "experimental" ideas like these. After all, the diminished 5th / augmented 4th (A to Eb, to fit this illustration) is "the devil's harmony" and wasn't allowed in many Christian sanctuaries for centuries.

You can see this "hold the bass/foundation note, raise the other notes to create new chords" concept also in Blue Fields, Find Your Way, and other great pieces from the soundtrack.

Get chords you talked about, and play them descending at a fast speed.

E C AF C AF# C A

FF6 boss theme intro chord outline. ;) Genius. I giggled in glee when I read your post Ramza. That's what I was thinking the whole time.

Speaking of which, did anyone notice that in Blue Dragon, Uematsu used, essentially, the Figaro Castle theme, arranged it into heavy metal, and made a dungeon theme?

Oh, and the mode you are looking for for Fithos Lusec (the Dorian with the lowered 2nd) is "Phrygian Dominant". It's a fairly common mode used to approximate moorish music (though I'm guessing that since a lot of moorish musical practice was influenced by the Greeks, it's not really all that far from western musical practice). However, unlike a lot of things that blatently go for the middle-eastern feel (I'm guilty myself, I'll admit), Fithos Lusec doesn't hammer that flat-2, natural-3 interval all the time, it just slips the flat-2 in during a few choice spots for coloration. And it never even appears during the main progression.

Fascinating piece, though. Too bad the orchestral arrangement made some poor production choices with the female voice part. Unlike some people, I can sort of understand what they were going for, but some mixing producer screwed up along the way and put the voice way too far forward, with the wrong reverb, so it doesn't sound like she's in the same hall. She's NOT out of tune though, it's simply a whole-tone scale super-imposed over the pounding bVI, bVII chords. Many people treat it as an accident, but the accident was in the production. If the engineer had been doing their job, it would have sounded natural, though dissonant, and people would have believed that it was purposeful. It really ticks me off when people mistake a bad production decision for a performance error. That singer was spot-on, with a VERY difficult part... and they ruined it!

Sorry </rant>

Problem was, the chorus was recorded in a hall. And the female voice part was recorded separately. That's okay, and do-able... but they should have booked the same hall again and recorded her in it, alone. Also, no solo vocalist can sing THAT LOUD over the top of a huge chanting choir, so it's just not believable that there's a person in the same room with the choir. We go from a fairly traditional acoustic space that we're comfortable with, to our ears telling us... "oooh... something's wrong". I'd have loved to have heard that piece recorded properly, with the vocalist mixed lower and in the same room, THAT would have been intense!

I don't know what the hell some of you guys are talking about. All that stuff just goes way over my head. I just like good music, dammit! I suppose it's kind of like when I start talking about plants with the Latin names and peoples eyes glaze over.

Speaking of which, did anyone notice that in Blue Dragon, Uematsu used, essentially, the Figaro Castle theme, arranged it into heavy metal, and made a dungeon theme?

Oh, and the mode you are looking for for Fithos Lusec (the Dorian with the lowered 2nd) is "Phrygian Dominant". It's a fairly common mode used to approximate moorish music (though I'm guessing that since a lot of moorish musical practice was influenced by the Greeks, it's not really all that far from western musical practice). However, unlike a lot of things that blatently go for the middle-eastern feel (I'm guilty myself, I'll admit), Fithos Lusec doesn't hammer that flat-2, natural-3 interval all the time, it just slips the flat-2 in during a few choice spots for coloration. And it never even appears during the main progression.

Fascinating piece, though. Too bad the orchestral arrangement made some poor production choices with the female voice part. Unlike some people, I can sort of understand what they were going for, but some mixing producer screwed up along the way and put the voice way too far forward, with the wrong reverb, so it doesn't sound like she's in the same hall. She's NOT out of tune though, it's simply a whole-tone scale super-imposed over the pounding bVI, bVII chords. Many people treat it as an accident, but the accident was in the production. If the engineer had been doing their job, it would have sounded natural, though dissonant, and people would have believed that it was purposeful. It really ticks me off when people mistake a bad production decision for a performance error. That singer was spot-on, with a VERY difficult part... and they ruined it!

Sorry </rant>

Problem was, the chorus was recorded in a hall. And the female voice part was recorded separately. That's okay, and do-able... but they should have booked the same hall again and recorded her in it, alone. Also, no solo vocalist can sing THAT LOUD over the top of a huge chanting choir, so it's just not believable that there's a person in the same room with the choir. We go from a fairly traditional acoustic space that we're comfortable with, to our ears telling us... "oooh... something's wrong". I'd have loved to have heard that piece recorded properly, with the vocalist mixed lower and in the same room, THAT would have been intense!

I didn't get a chance to listen to the whole piece until today. Sir, your comments on Fithos Lusec is hardly a rant. It sounded awful and should have been axed out. There is no reason to include a separate track recording if it isn't going to be mixed to hall acoustic to sound like where the chorus was recorded. Also, thanks for distinguishing that mode! I'm a fan of the modern Phrygian mode because of it's spicey flavor. I believe that is what that Pokemon Pearl/Diamond Gym leader battle is written in (For all I know it could be natural minor with Flat 2 - wait a second! ;) )

If you ever wanted give yourself a bull fight chordal theme:

E G A F A CG B DF A CE G A

Of course there's a lot more than that to your bull fight; Explore some ;)

By the way, I changed the topic title to include anime music as well. Composers cross over both regions and I listen to music from anime almost as much as Game Music. Next post will have anime tracks included :3

By the way, I changed the topic title to include anime music as well. Composers cross over both regions and I listen to music from anime almost as much as Game Music. Next post will have anime tracks included :3

Oh man, if you are going to broaden the topic to include anime osts, I'll contribute to this thread later as well. The hard thing will be narrowing down choices.